Sniffing out the work of God in the world…
Mark Elrod, a political science professor at Harding, is featured in a New York Times article with the headline “Obama Supporters Take His Middle Name As Their Own.” Would that be Mark Hussein Elrod?
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Here is a shot of the Library of Celsus in Ephesus:
For a couple months, this beautiful little girl lived here with us. She spent about half the time in this house and half the time with her other grandparents. Her parents were suspended between medical school and residency.
For a couple months, she ran around the house, patted our dogs, acquainted herself with other dogs in the neighborhood, sang, danced, laughed, and brought great joy.
She now lives in Durham, NC. Her dad is doing his internal medicine residency at Duke. For some reason, her mommy and daddy felt like she needed to make the move with them.
I miss her.
A lot.
Thanks to all you wonderful people at the Southwest Central Church of Christ in Houston who loved her for the first year of her life — and for pouring your love on her parents for four years. They’ll never forget it. Nor will I.
I just read that both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain can count on about 190 electoral votes going into the election. The outcome will turn, so this source said, on twelve states.
We’ll miss Tim Russert. As devotees of “The Today Show” and NBC News (along with CNN), we followed his predictions of “Florida, Florida, Florida” (2000) and “Ohio, Ohio, Ohio” (2004).
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For the next seven weeks we’re going to be celebrating “The Church At Play.” We’ll meet at 6:00 to eat together (with everyone bringing their own dinner — even if just a quick run through Subway), followed by a brief intergenerational devotional time. Then, around 7:00 there will be two fun activities for people to choose from. Next Wednesday those activities will be watermelon on the parking lot or watching “Cars” in the auditorium. We’re hoping that our members who have antique cars will bring them that night.
It’s always difficult to know what to do during Wednesdays in the summer. We’re recognizing that there is a time to work . . . and a time to PLAY. I’ll let you know how it goes.
OK, so it wasn’t ALL hot and dusty tours of ancient sites . . . .
And from the heated springs of Hierapolis (famous in ancient times):
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As we traveled through the southwestern part of Turkey to sites at Pergamum, Sardis, Hierapolis, Laodicea, Colossae, Aphrodisias, Didyma, and Ephesus, we were overwhelmed by the size of the theaters and stadiums that remain from Roman (and pre-Roman) times.
The well-preserved theater in Ephesus (the one mentioned in Acts 19) seated 24,000. Reminder: no sound system. They must have had amazing acoustical engineering and vocal training. Plus, I guess, no cell phones were going off to compete with the actors.
Here are some of the sites.
The theater on the hill of Pergamum (above modern Bergama):
The theater at Hierapolis:
The theater and stadium at Aphrodisias:
And the most impressive theater of Ephesus. (”The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia, and rushed as one man into the theater.” Acts 19:29)
Here’s our “team.” We’re just six people who’ve been friends for almost a quarter of a century. It was a serendipity that one of the six is something of an expert on Ephesus, ancient Greco-Roman religions, and Roman civic religion.
From William Willimon’s comments on Acts 20:
This is one of the New Testament’s earliest definite references to weekly Sunday worship. The Christians have continued to gather in the synagogue — unless they have been expelled. But they also apparently gather on Sunday, the first day of the Jewish work week, the day which is for Christians a day of resurrection. The church Luke describes is thus moving toward a distinct day of worship of its own, a day symbolizing clearly that while there is much uniting the church with Judaism there is also much dividing it from Judaism. The day of worship, as well as the stories and actions which occur around the table, constitutes the church as a distinct entity, gives it an identity, keeps reminding the church of who it is. Sunday is the Lord’s Day when Christians gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Around the table in the gathering for worship, in the breaking of bread, Christians sustain one another through the presence of God as experienced at the table. As the Reformers agreed, word and sacrament belong together. Here is where the Body of Christ is made visible (1 Cor. 11:17-32). Here is where the Body re-forms, receives nourishment and encouragement in this weekly rhythm of renewal and reiteration of our identity as God’s family.
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How would you like to be in charge of advertising revenues for the network carrying the British Open or the PGA, only to open up your morning paper and find out that Tiger is missing the rest of the year to have knee surgery? Golf right now is feast or famine, depending on whether he is in the tournament. There are lots of good players — but they’re miles from the best player.
Having said that, my prediction from three years ago that he won’t break Nicklaus’s major’s record (18) is safe for now. I made that prediction based on the factors of health, a constant flow of new players, and the sheer difficulty of it. So, what year do you predict that this prediction will be proven wrong?
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We were sound asleep in the little village of Sirince when a blast of noise came up the hillside from the village center. It seems that everyone was gathered around some televisions to watch Turkey’s dramatic comeback victory over Czechoslovakia in the World Cup. I’m not sure we (in the States) have anything to compare to most of the world’s soccer obsession.
The Common Reading for our incoming freshmen at ACU this year is Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together
If you haven’t read this incredible book by Ron Hall and Denver Moore, go get it now! I’ll bet your library has it. Two lives merge in unlikely, gospel-formed ways in a downtown Ft. Worth mission outreach.
I can’t wait for these two men to be on our campus on September 9. They will speak to ACU students and faculty that afternoon in Hart Auditorium; then they’ll tell more of their stories and their friendship that evening in Cullen Auditorium when all are invited.
We’re back. Home. Our own house. Pillows that fit.
Jet-lagged to the point of being cross-eyed, however. I’ve heard that morning people travel east well, and that night people travel west well. Is that true? It certainly fits me! I pretty quickly hit the ground running after traveling eight time zones to the east. But I’m not sure which way is up this morning.
Pictures to follow, of course.
Yesterday we visited Hierapolis and Laodicea in the Lycus Valley of Turkey. There are amazing Greek and Roman ruins in Hierapolis. But a 10 minute hike up a hillside takes you to the remains of a 6th century church building that tradition says was built on the site where the apostle Philip’s body was buried after being crucified. This seems to be a fairly strong tradition (his death in Hierapolis, that is). We walked through remembering what Philip told his brother after meeting Jesus: “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote — Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”. I wondered if he remembered those early words as he was put to death here
I’ll try to send one or two more short notes. I’m pecking out on my Blackberry, so they will be short!
Here’s Rick Reilly, back at ESPN Magazine, sharp as always — fitting for Father’s Day.
To pique your interest, here’s a bit:
And then one day, out of the blue, maybe 25 years ago, my dad went to one AA meeting and quit. Never had a drop after that.
It was five more years before I finally believed it. Then I invited him to the Masters. He was 70, I was 30. And it was on that two-and-a-half-hour ride from Atlanta to Augusta that we finally met.
